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Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Instagram Challenge

One of my favorite things to do before bed is to scroll through my Instagram feed. I must say, I follow a great group of fitness minded people, runners, foodies, fashionistas, and Disney fans.

Although we have our group of running bloggers that we connect with on a daily (or weekly) basis, I noticed that there was a good group of Instagram folks whoseblogs we hadn't been reading. I connect with them on IG, so I thought I would challenge myself to check out a few of their blogs each night (or check and see if they even had a blog). My first challenge was to check out and comment on 5 blogs.

The following is an honest account of what actually happened.

The first account I checked out didn't have a blog. Which I was kind of bummed about because this girl was a runner and her IG feed was full of awesome races that I would have liked to heard more about.

The second runner did have a blog. Score! To be honest the blog post I clicked on was not that interesting. It was about a bad hair day. I took 20 minutes reading that long post and then when I got to the end, I really didn't even know what say. But what frustrated me the most was that this commenting system was all sorts of crazy. It wouldn't take my comment or I had to log into some other platform, it was just crazy. I didn't even learn anything valuable from this post so there was 20 minutes just wasted!

I started reading the third blog and then BAM!!! SUBSCRIBE to my Newsletter! SUBSCRIBE to my blog! SUBSCRIBE! SUBSCRIBE! SUBSCRIBE! Can I tell you how much I HATE this! I read blogs on my phone and these Pop up boxes take up the entire screen. This particular one had no way of "x"ing it out so my only option was to just leave the blog.

The fourth blog I started reading had ads that popped up (that were annoying) but at least I could click the "x" to close them. There were also ads (and I mean big ads) that were displayed right in the middle of the blog ( like between every paragraph). I know some people have ads on the tops, bottoms, and sides of their blogs, but why right in the middle?

The fifth blog I found I was only able to read the right side of the page due to all the social media buttons showing up on the left side. Isn't their a way to hide this? I am not a fan of the social media buttons taking up have the screen but I will admit that some of our regular blogs we read do have them. We just try to do our best to decode the post because we like the blogger.

So needless to say, I didn't find any IG bloggers who I'm going to add to my blog roll (at least not during this round).

So perhaps some of these things are only happening on MY phone, IDK. If you have one or more of these things on your blog I'm not judging you but I'd like to ask Why? Do you benefit from the big subscribe buttons or the social media buttons that take up half your page? Just food for thought!

51 comments:

I'm sorry your venture didn't turn out as planned. I understand ads (gotta make money), but I've definitely skipped many blog posts due to not being able to read it. Does your phone browser have a reader friendly button? On my iPhone there are 3 little bars on the top left that help when there are tons of ads. :)

That is frustrating! I really dislike pop-ups as well and click out of them as soon as I can. I tend to read blogs more often on my computer, but sometimes check them out on my phone. I have my blog set so it shows up without ads, etc. on mobile apps. I am on IG as well if you want to stop by :-) @marathonsandmotivation Have a Great Week!!

Oh I completely agree with you! The contestant millions of subscribe pop ups kill me, and when I can't even figure out how to quickly comment on your blog or follow you on social media I'm just going to leave your blog. It's good to know that it's not just me who gets upset about these things!

UGH! when there is one that just won't let me X out I'll leave as well. I tend to only read blogs on my phone if I'm commuting or waiting somewhere and rarely comment that way. I prefer my laptop (for my eyesight in general) but man, bloggers are making it hard these days!

I've also used Instagram to find new blogs to follow and it's really hit or miss. Sometimes you find someone great and sometimes it's a bunch of roadblocks like the ones you mentioned. Like you mentioned - wonky commenting systems and too many ad/popups are mega annoying and definitely a reason to hit next!

I love your idea of trying to find new blogs via Instagram. I tired this over the summer when I had a week of vacation and I came to a lot of the same results. Unfortunately, some folks that are reallllly good at taking photos and having an engaging IG following, don't have the same luck with their blogs. It's interesting to see how different personalities maintain all things social media and where there preferences are.... That being said, I hope that my site has a decent balance of ads in the sidebar and it doesn't interfere with the content on my page. I will say that I refuse to include pop ups and banner ads though because I find them to be pretty bothersome.

I've been trying to find more interesting like minded people to follow as well. Sometimes searching hashtags works really well for me. I can't stand pop up subscribe things especially if it's my first visit to their blog

I always feel challenged on my phone reading blogs, some don't have a mobile format and things are hard to follow. I always mess up my comments on my phone lol darn auto correct.I do love IG and I have found a few new folks I like, but I am time challenged already, i am afraid to find too many more LOL

What a huge ordeal?! Yikes! I hate that. I read so many blogs from my phone so if they don't have a good mobile site I rarely go back. I also hate when I really like following someone on IG and they don't have a blog. Sometimes I want more content!

I hate the subscribe pop ups the most because you can never make them go away, and they just keep coming! I like to use IG to find new blogs, too, but I've found some IGers may be great at photos but terrible at writing, so it's pretty hit and miss.

What an interesting challenge for yourself. I too hate pop ups, and when they appear I'm almost immediately turned off from that blog for good. Sorry to hear that you didn't find any new blogs to start following. Do you think that you'll do this challenge again?

This is so interesting. Like you, I love my IG "tribe" but I don't read their blogs and I've often asked myself why? Popups are rampant despite seemingly everyone complaining about them. I don't get it.

I totally enjoyed this post! I haven't chased any IG links to a blog. After reading this, I'm not sure that I want to. I hate pop ups too, and I had one briefly, to subscribe to my blog, but got rid of it when people told me it was annoying. I don't want to be annoying!

I hate pop up ads. I know if I added them I could easily make a few hundred extra profit each month. But the cost to that would be losing and annoying some of my favorite readers so so far I have steered away from them. I added the scrolling share buttons, but included the feature to only work on PC not mobile. Its been a great feature to add because only a week after I did it my traffic doubled all from others sharing my content.When I go new blog hunting like you I get so annoyed if the site wont load normally. If a pop up comes on my phone I usually back out quickly. Here is my theory. Bloggers who are interested in networking and like comments should limit the ads and disable pop ups. Bloggers who are just in it for pageviews and the masses and money all power to them, but on that note they wont encourage me to want to visit again:)

There really are a ton of IG folks who either don't blog, don't update, or have tons of ads. It is a bummer because their photos are interesting. I would never subscribe to someone's blog if they have the big popup. I'd be more likely to join a newsletter if it was mentioned in a post or at the bottom of a post... but honestly I get way too many emails to join a blog newsletter. ;)

Oh yeah! I get the same with some people I follow on IG! the dreaded subscribe to my blog ( or newsletter). Or when they have a pretty solid training, awesome pictures, and great races, but their last post was 3 months ago! No offense to any other bloggers, but the Subscribe button drives me crazy! I'm already here, I'm already following, don't ask me to subscribe to newsletters, or blog! I don't understand the purpose of a newsletter from a blogger... what will be in a newsletter that I didn't read in the blog already!

I feel the same way...just let me read the blog. It's like telemarketers calling. If I want to subscribe, follow, buy something, I will figure out how to do it :) As a blogger, it's also nice to read a post like this and then do a little self-check. Am I doing any of these? I've had people email me letting me know they can't comment and I had know idea there was an issue!

Fairytales and Fitness is a personal blog authored and edited by us, Meranda and Lacey. The thoughts expressed here represent only our own and are not meant to be taken as professional advice. Please note that our thoughts and opinions change from time to time. We consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind in an ever changing society. Any thoughts and opinions expressed within our out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may express today. Some links may contain affiliate links. Some links are just to pages we'd like to share.

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Fairytales and Fitness by Lacey and Meranda

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We are two sisters who are runners and Disney lovers. On this blog we tell our stories of traveling, training, races, ( and a few tips we've learned along the way). We talk about products we've tried and all the things that bring us joy (including our yellow Labradors). Thanks for visiting and we hope you enjoy what you read.